


In Search of the Nobody that I Am

by Aondeug



Category: Force of Will (Card Game), Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Kingdom Hearts AU, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 08:26:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15530202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aondeug/pseuds/Aondeug
Summary: A great darkness has risen up and shaken the worlds. The Light Palace has fallen under the might of an army of Heartless, and seemingly the only survivors of the chaos are two of the King's servants. Go out and find someone with a Key is what Grimm told Fiethsing and Kaguya. Go out and use that Key to lock the gates. They went out and found a Key.That Key though is wielded by a mysterious woman seemingly without a past. A woman fittingly known as Zero.





	In Search of the Nobody that I Am

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself I'd make an AU for FoW and a crossover one at that. Here it is then. A Kingdom Hearts AU and character study of Zero. I'd like to thank everyone who read the earlier drafts of the poem and who helped me get the work to its current state. Without you it wouldn't be what it is.

Who are you?  
You ask yourself that  
As you gaze into a pool  
Of clear water  
That reflects your face.  
Just who are you?  
  
Zero.  
That’s your name  
And it’s always been that.  
Your hair is blue,  
Your eyes are red,  
And you’ve a tattoo too,  
A little red one  
Right under your left eye.  
You don’t know why  
And you don’t know when  
Or where you got it  
But it’s there.  
Like your sword, the Key  
That closes doors  
And opens worlds,  
It’s there.  
You don’t know why  
Or when or where.  
Not with the tattoo,  
Not with the sword,  
Or even your name.  
You figure though  
As you watch your face  
That it’s fine.  
It’s just a memory  
From far, far back  
From so long ago  
That it’s fading fast  
Like a puff of dream  
From the night before.  
So you don’t mind it  
Because you’re you,  
Zero.  
  
So you continue about  
Questing and searching,  
As you close door after door  
With your lover, a mage,  
Who calls herself Fiethsing,  
A sage of some king named Grimm.  
You travel with her daughter too  
Who you guess is yours as well,  
Just the same as hers.  
Together as a family you go  
From world to world  
And you slay them  
The little black shadows  
That rise from the nothing  
Left from those without Hearts.  
This is what you’ve done  
For days and weeks and months now.  
You travel where they rise  
As they threaten to swallow up worlds,  
And each time you beat them back  
Before you lock the gates  
And move on to the next world  
With your family in tow,  
Faithful as always,  
As you continue about.  
  
At night though  
On a dusty plain  
You can’t get the shadows out,  
They prance about your mind  
Singing a familiar song.  
The tune, it taunts you  
And draws your mind  
To a sort of kinship,  
And a deep yearning and knowing.  
You don’t know of what  
But it’s there, just the same,  
Clawing, clawing at your mind  
As you roll over with a huff  
And you tell Fieth it’s alright.  
You’ll get to sleep sometime,  
But maybe not at night.  
  
Alhama’at  
Is a name dark like the night  
And a man just that dark too.  
So dark that his eyes glow  
The same deep gold  
Of the Heartless, lonely and lost  
And more vast than you can know.  
You don’t know why or understand  
How he keeps opening the gates  
Or why would he would.  
So he can take the Hearts of people  
As well as worlds  
Is the answer, you’re sure of it  
But how could he and why would he?  
You don’t know why either  
Why he looks at you  
And seems almost to burn  
With a hate you can’t comprehend  
For all that you are.  
You figure that perhaps it’s the Key  
And how you hassle him  
Closing gate after gate  
Before he can wrench away the Hearts  
From the worlds you fight him on,  
Always demanding to know more  
And never getting answers.  
You’re so sure of this and yet  
You can’t help but think  
That there’s more to it,  
More that comes from memories  
Lurking deep in your mind  
As you look at that face  
With a name you’ve only just learned  
But with eyes you do know.  
You can’t help but think that  
The hate in those eyes is new  
And unfamiliar just like the name,  
Alhama’at.  
  
Fieth.  
You think about her too  
As you move on from dusty plains  
To deep wide seas.  
How long’ve you known her?  
It feels almost like,  
Just as if,  
You’ve always known her.  
That she’s always been there,  
Right with you  
Just like now.  
You know that’s not true  
Because it can’t be,  
But you search and search  
For things before her,  
And times before her  
And it only goes back so far.  
A day maybe  
Or ten,  
You don’t know how many  
But it’s not many, oh no.  
No, hardly any,  
Because she’s always been here  
With you.  
Smiling and teasing,  
Hugging and kissing,  
Thrusting you against walls  
And floors too,  
Because she’s always been here.  
And you’ve always known her,  
Fieth.  
  
That’s impossible though,  
It has to be.  
It makes no sense,  
It can’t make any  
But you feel it  
Deep down  
To the core of you,  
Your very being,  
That that’s as far back  
As your being goes.  
That this woman  
Who taught you so much,  
How to love,  
How to parent,  
How to hope,  
Is as far as you go  
And those things she taught?  
You know them only from her.  
You knew nothing before her,  
But that’s impossible, right?  
  
Then you hear it,  
A name you don’t know  
And which you do know,  
Reiya.  
Three sounds fall  
From the lips of a man  
In a world of forts with moats  
And straw mats and paper walls  
That vampires haunt:  
Re-i-ya.  
You know the sounds,  
And you don’t know them  
And your daughter’s confused  
And your lover too  
And you most of all.  
You brush it off  
With a shrug and a steely glare  
Because there’s work to be done.  
There’s shadows to slay,  
And doors to close,  
And Hearts to save,  
But you heard it.  
  
Reiya.  
Who is that?  
Just who or what  
And why can you see her  
In your mind’s eye  
Fuzzy and indistinct  
Like a half remembered dream?  
She’s a woman like you  
With blue hair  
And red eyes  
And a tattoo too,  
A little red one  
Right under her left eye.  
Over and over,  
Night after night,  
The name nags at you,  
And refuses to leave you.  
It’s there, just there,  
Ever and on,  
That name, that woman  
Who’s so familiar and yet not at all.  
You need to know why,  
You need to know why you know.  
You need her,  
Reiya.  
  
There’s a lot you need to know  
And which he’ll never share  
As you go from world to world  
Demanding answers from a madman  
Whose done so much harm  
And yet not as much as you see  
Right now in a world of cities.  
Towers tumble to the ground,  
Fires spark the world over,  
And death fills the streets.  
You see him here too  
Right in the middle of it all  
And somehow you know  
That it can’t have been him  
And he says so himself,  
Calling you fools as always.  
Fools who are blown back  
By a power greater than the warlock’s  
That comes from the hands of a boy  
Whose very visage shocks you  
More than you’ve ever been before.  
He’s just a boy,  
Young like your daughter,  
But the grin on his face  
Is full of mocking malice  
As he holds up the Heart  
Of the world you’re on  
And taunts Alhama’at  
Calling him father  
And mucking up the whole story  
With more questions than you can count.  
More come as he crushes the Heart,  
Not even stealing it  
To use for whatever dark designs  
That he might have.  
Lives beyond counting end  
And all you can do is rush and run  
The three of you  
To your ship and off the world  
Wondering over and over  
Just how could that have happened.  
You wonder and wonder  
As the world blinks from reality  
Never to come back  
Even from a restoration.  
You wrack your mind as you watch  
Numb and full of nothing  
And you understand nothing,  
No matter how hard you try  
And you know then  
That there’s so much you need to know.  
  
  
Sometimes it feels like,  
You can’t really feel.  
Which sounds weird.  
It sounds odd and awful  
And horribly untrue.  
Sometimes though,  
Just a bit,  
It feels like you don’t feel,  
Not really.  
Like on this day  
When there’s nothing there  
In your Heart  
As you shout out in fear  
For your child  
As that damned warlock  
Alhama’at, source of Darkness  
And researcher of Void,  
Tries to steal her  
And her Heart.  
You scream and you cry  
And you fight and you struggle  
On and on  
Until you save her,  
Until she’s in your arms  
And you both in Fieth’s,  
But there is nothing,  
Nothing at all in your Heart.  
You shouted, you fought  
But did you feel it?  
Did your Heart ache  
Or were you just  
Acting?  
Sometimes it feels like it.  
  
Something you’re sure of  
Beyond a shadow of a doubt  
Is that the boy doesn’t feel.  
Your feelings and their lack aside  
You know with certainty  
That he can’t have a Heart,  
That behind those red eyes  
And that cocky grin  
There is no Heart in him.  
This you know because you’ve seen  
Again and again  
How he sweeps life away  
Without a second thought.  
All of you’ve seen it  
And all of you stare him down  
In a world falling to pieces  
Under the weight of its own Heart  
And the loss of it all.  
You hold out your sword  
In a challenge  
And you make your demands  
Of why and how he could do this,  
When not even Alhama’at can,  
When not even a warlock is so cold  
And needlessly destructive.  
‘Oh you’d love to know that  
Wouldn’t you?’ he answers back  
Voice forsaken by Light and Dark,  
‘Even though you know why.’  
He’s cryptic, always so cryptic  
And you’re at your wits ends  
Thinking to set him down  
And chastise the brat.  
It’s a familiar desire now  
Thanks to Kaguya, you guess,  
And you guess it comes up here  
Because he’s just so young.  
To your surprise though  
He does provide an answer  
In coordinates if not words  
As he tosses a book to you  
And says ‘If you dally too long  
You’ll go just like this false world!’  
The words spur you all on  
And the numbers awaken a thrill  
Of familiarity at something  
As you make an escape  
From yet another tragic failure.  
The next world won’t fall,  
You tell yourself that firmly  
As you enter in the coordinates.  
You’ll get the answers you need  
Right from those numbers there.  
That’s something you’re sure of.  
  
The worst is yet to come  
As you tear through  
Book after book  
Looking at his archives  
And his libraries  
And his labs  
Looking for answers,  
And looking for whys.  
Why has the warlock gone  
And stolen Hearts  
And why would he  
And how could he  
And why do you know him?  
You read and read  
Even as Fieth  
Lays a hand on your shoulder  
And asks you to rest,  
And to calm yourself.  
Sleep a bit, or eat a bit  
“Because books can’t run.  
Just ignore that castle  
Where books could run  
And armoires too.”  
That’s what she tells you,  
But you can’t,  
And you shout  
Shoving her off  
Physically, mentally,  
Because need her to leave,  
Because you keep seeing it.  
You see it.  
Mentions of more than Hearts  
And those without Hearts.  
You see that one word  
Over and over:  
Nobody.  
So you have to,  
You have to keep reading  
And reading and reading  
Because the worst is yet to come.  
  
Then you find her  
Deep in his lab,  
The woman in your mind,  
And who’s back in at the edges  
Of memory itself,  
Buried almost as deep  
As she is here.  
You all three find her  
Reiya,  
Her name on the pod.  
She has blue hair  
And red eyes,  
So you figure  
Since they’re shut tight  
As she sleeps on.  
But she has blue hair  
And a tattoo too,  
A little red one,  
Right under her left eye.  
Right under your left eye.  
And you’ve found her.  
  
Kaguya  
Always so astute,  
And full of that intuition  
That only children have  
And Fieth too, you guess,  
She says it.  
She says it,  
Loud and clear  
For all to hear,  
“Look! It’s you, Zero!”  
Your eyes widen at that  
And your sword falls to the floor  
With a clatter  
And there’s nothing there.  
There’s nothing in your Heart.  
It doesn’t ache, doesn’t pain.  
There’s no lifting of weight  
When Fieth calls your name  
And holds you close.  
There’s no concern either  
As Kaguya frets and wonders  
Just what she did wrong,  
And how she hurt you.  
She’s worried and she’s crying  
And it’s setting in at last,  
A deep knowing  
Shared by you both.  
The end is coming.  
To what though,  
She can’t guess  
And you can’t either  
As you cling to Fieth.  
You can’t feel either  
As you say her name,  
Kaguya.  
  
There’s even more notes  
Which go on and on  
About Hearts and Nobodies  
And how to restore both,  
How to save them,  
The people without Hearts.  
The one can’t exist,  
Not while the other does.  
There’s one and only one,  
There has to be,  
There must be.  
It can’t be helped,  
And suddenly right then  
You know why he hates you,  
Why he tries to end you  
With such ferocity.  
It’s not for locking gates alone,  
But for what you’ve taken.  
The three of you all read on ever more  
As there’s still so much more to read  
And you find it  
A family,  
Three people together.  
There was a mother and a father,  
And a little son  
Who used to be a brother  
Until he lost his Heart,  
And a Nobody was made and raised  
Into a Somebody,  
Or so they hoped.  
There were three people together,  
Until there was one  
And only one.  
Only a man obsessed  
With what he had lost  
At the hands of his ‘son’  
And before his ‘son’.  
A man who was once calmed  
And kept from revenge  
By a family alone  
Who now seeks to save a family  
And still there’s even more notes.  
  
Lapis,  
The final piece,  
The last secret,  
Which makes it click  
Snapping together neatly  
Like a puzzle.  
He’s there too  
In the lab, in the pod,  
Just like Reiya.  
He’s there too  
Resting ever and on,  
Just like Reiya.  
He’s there too  
In the back of your mind.  
Just. Like. Reiya.  
A boy, a son,  
A brother  
Running about  
And wanting to be more  
Who struck his mother down  
And who feels nothing  
As he crushes life.  
He’s here,  
Lapis.  
  
You can’t go, not just yet,  
All three of you say so.  
You can’t bear it, can’t do it  
Even though it needs to be done  
And stares you in the face,  
Assaulting from all sides.  
From notes and pods  
And memories too,  
But you can’t bear it, not yet.  
So you hide up there  
In the rooms without books,  
Safe from secrets  
Too horrid to have learned  
And you’re all together.  
All together as you’ve always known,  
A family.  
Two mothers  
And a daughter,  
Just like always.  
She’s in your lap  
Little Kaguya  
Curled up and sleeping,  
Tired and worn out,  
Driven to slumber by tears.  
She’s there too, Fieth,  
With an arm around you  
And her head against you.  
They’re both here with you  
As they’ve always been  
And you try to feel  
Just this once,  
Just one time,  
Before you leave it all behind,  
And you can’t.  
You can’t feel it  
In your Heart  
Even as you kiss Fieth,  
You can’t feel it  
In your Heart  
Even as you tell her,  
You can’t feel it  
In your Heart  
Even as she says the same,  
Because there was never love,  
Just an act at it  
Learned from her  
And the half memories of a Somebody  
Who you tried to be.  
But even knowing so  
You can’t go, not just yet.  
  
Just one more night  
Is all you need  
And all she needs,  
So you sneak away,  
The both of you.  
You leave Kaguya to rest  
Guarded by your companions;  
A cat, an owl, and a rabbit,  
Each a fierce fighter  
As you sneak away,  
The both of you,  
Not too far, just enough  
For privacy, for intimacy,  
For just one more moment.  
Together, barely clothed,  
Together, wanting more,  
Together, cherishing it  
Because it can’t last forever.  
It’s only a moment,  
Gone before you know it,  
And you’re still not sure  
But you think  
That maybe, just maybe,  
Just this once  
That there’s something more,  
Something more than an act,  
Just for one night.  
  
The Key opens gates  
To worlds upon worlds  
Beyond counting and reckoning.  
The Key opens Hearts  
Of people and people  
Beyond understanding and knowing.  
The Key is a sword,  
First and foremost,  
A weapon with which you fight  
The Darkness.  
The Key is a sword,  
First and foremost,  
A weapon with which you slay  
The Darkness.  
You take up your sword  
And turn it inwards  
And plunge it deep, deep within,  
Deep, deep until it’s through you.  
You take up your sword  
As they watch and wait,  
As the cry and mourn  
And you can’t understand why  
Because there was never anyone there,  
Never a Somebody.  
You were just a Nobody  
Who wielded a Key,  
A Key that opens gates.  
  
She wakes up  
From a long dream  
That she can’t quite grasp  
Even though it’s vivid,  
And almost real.  
It seems like a life  
That she’s lived apart from her own,  
And the dream fades away  
As all do  
Leaving only the lab  
And the pod,  
Which she forces open.  
She falls out,  
Not expecting so little a fight  
And falls to the floor  
With a cry.  
There’s a gasp  
And she looks up  
Into faces she’s seen  
Only in dreams  
And she hears a voice  
From someone she’s heard  
Only in dreams.  
This someone calls out her name,  
Reiya.  
She calls out your name,  
Reiya.  
And you’ve woken up.  



End file.
